Open MIC joined 76 public interest organizations in signing on to a letter to the Chairman and Commissioners of the FCC urging the agency to take action on three important issues: the set-top box rulemaking, the broadband privacy rulemaking, and the zero rating investigation. Public interest organizations view action on these issues as necessary to make internet, cable, and satellite services more affordable and open, and to preserve internet users’ privacy.

The text of the letter below:

Dear Chairman Wheeler and Commissioners:

The FCC has several big opportunities now to protect consumers in the digital age. Among them are two pending proceedings on this month’s agenda and one informal investigation that the FCC must act on as soon as possible: the set-top box rulemaking, the broadband privacy rulemaking, and the zero rating investigation. Each of these issues has been discussed by policymakers for years, if not decades. Further delay would put internet users’ privacy in jeopardy and undermine longstanding efforts to make internet, cable and satellite services more affordable and open.

This Commission has made bold and historic moves to dismantle technological barriers to free and unfettered speech, making tools for generating content more accessible, and networks for sharing and reading more egalitarian. Chief among this Commission’s accomplishments was the historic Open Internet Order, which set in place protections to help ensure that the world’s most powerful platform for democratic speech and association does not become an oligarchy of closely curated and censored speech.

But there is still much left to do. The below-signed 76 groups and the American public therefore call on you to liberate consumers from the set-top box monopoly, helping lower prices and creating more choice for consumers and opportunities for small and independent programmers eager to grow their audience; to promulgate rules that foster trust in the integrity of broadband privacy so that consumers will readily use the internet, without self-censoring, for learning, expression, and association; and to prohibit abusive data caps and zero rating plans that violate net neutrality.

Each day that passes without marking progress on these important issues is another day of missed opportunities. We thank you for your continuing commitment to protecting consumers and promoting free and open access to critical communications networks and technologies. We urge you to move forward without delay on these important issues.